EPISODE ONEMarket Day, Dead Summer

That’s what Eye calls it when he sends Slave out of the house, down the street by the directest route possible, avoiding the middle school where he should by rights be confined with his others, downtown to perform these three things in this order:

3. Purchase (most important) a fresh take of Night Sugar (as Eye likes to believe Slave believes methadone is called, manifesting an odd but undeniable protective streak, a vein of tenderne almost visible as its own shape and color in Eye’s mass of white and red), from Rib, “this town’s main dealer,” as he would describe himself, not inaccurately, to you, if pressed.

Bank draft accomplished, funds in hand, Slave crosses the colossal parking lot on foot. A broken-down campervan that was broken down last time he passed this way is broken down this time as well. Those who were in it when it broke down appear to be in it still, eating popcorn and watching a movie as far as Slave can tell through its tinted windows in the harsh parking lot sun.

THROUGH THE FIRST SET OF ULTRA MAX AUTOMATIC DOORS,

past the hand-lettered posters of Missing Children, some with Rewards and some without. Slave averts his eyes, uncertain whether he most fears finding or not finding his picture among them.

A security guard sees him go in, stands still as a statue, thinking his own thoughts or none at all.

PAST THE SECOND SET OF AUTOMATIC DOORS,

beyond the coin-operated rocket ships and Gallery of Coupons, before which a set of Old-timers lingers, gawping as if at art.

IN THE AISLES,

Slave pushes a basket, tipping in only what he needs, unfolding Eye’s Shopping List, a laminated leather document that far predates Slave’s time in Eye’s house. Slave often wonders (as he does now) how and when this List was written – whether, at some now-distant juncture, Eye used to have arms and hands of his own with which to write, or whether he perhaps had some other Slave (or many), to whom such tasks as List writing once fell.

Slave experiences a twinge of jealousy; he stops pushing the cart to catch his breath. It tastes like cinnamon air-conditioning. Lynda, newscaster at the town’s Public Access TV Station, passes by, drinking a Diet Juice.

Peering in another direction, Slave catches sight of Otto and Tarletan, twin preachers of Divergent Words, in the Lemons & Plushtoys Aisle. In yet another direction, Slave catches sight of Mac and Chiara, and their new baby, here from some far other town, on a coast no doubt, except the baby who was born here and will – why not? – die here one day, perhaps long after everyone else in sight has died. Slave, because it has happened before, knows what is happening: he has lost momentum and lapsed out of doing and into witnessing. He is, for now, a passive observer, a Still Point in a Turning Universe, here in his aisle (Tea & Wads) of ULTRA MAX. .

HERE THEY COME NOW.

They pass him where he stands with the same gaze as ever: recognition and denial, hand in hand, knowing and wanting not to know and thus (almost) not knowing.

They say nothing; barely even stop, though here their long-missing and longed for son stands, in the flesh before them, near enough to touch but if they did, they know or think, their lives would go crinkly and crumble.

By the time they let a corner take them out of sight, Slave is back in the Reverie of Abduction, still glued to his parcel of ULTRA MAX aisle:

Like recalling the story of the trial and murder of some fringe Savior from an out of-print piece of Apocrypha, Slave replays the story of his abduction: how, long enough ago that it was not part of our current era, Eye took him away.

Moved him from one life into another, on the same street but hardly in the same realm.

Somehow he was coaxed. This is all he can remember, or all he lets himself or is let to remember. He was not grabbed; he went almost of his own accord – on his own two feet, at least – though was never invited to say no thanks.

He hadn’t known Eye personally before that, but all his childhood years sleeping in a bed by a window so near to Eye’s window hadn’t failed to take effect. Every night before sleep, Slave (back when his name had been a standard one) had, once undercover, peeled back the windowshade and looked across a parcel of grass and phone line into where a light glowed, beginning to sleep, not quite yet seeing Eye but knowing he was being watched by a sort of neighbor he’d do best not to ask or talk about to anyone. After enough years of nights like these (he always said his goodnights to the world like so), it grew inevitable to segue from the care of his parents to the care of Eye. When the day came – no memory of how he’d known what day it was – he went, and now he goes to sleep in the other house, looking back at the window he used to look out of.

END REVERIE OF ABDUCTION.

Slave looks down into his shopping cart, compares it with the leather List, sees he has everything he needs.Moves to the checkout aisle. ULTRA MAX is quiet now: Happy Hour in the café is in effect, siphoning stragglers by the dozen. After checkout, it’s time to meet Rib in the culverts out back.